Sylvia
Coming in october.
Jenny Hill
We are built in a way that we can withstand new beginnings and strange walls and the fact that security disappears.
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Jenni Mäki steps out of her withered marriage. A new beginning requires a new self, and this is how Jenni Mäki begins to emerge as Jenny Hill - more perceptive, more questioning, and more daring. At the same time, it may happen that she gets in touch with another level of consciousness, the ability to recognize the ancient traps of femininity. All this is observed by the narrator, who does not let Jenny Hill off easily.
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Jenny Hill is a multi-layered and evocative novel about a woman's middle age, menopause and aging - and a bit about fairy tale princesses and Brigitte Macron.
Sighs from the classroom
Sharp correspondence about the changes in the school world.
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Despite the fears and uncertainties, I play every day with the idea of quitting. It’s bouncing in my mind like a balloon, light and lovely.
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Sighs from the Classroom consists of a year's worth of correspondence, with the main theme being the current state of the Finnish school system. Kinnunen and Rytisalo write about the loveliness of teaching, about how wonderful it is to open doors to the world of language and literature from grade 7 to A-levels and to see how young people discover their own strengths.
However, all this is overshadowed by structural challenges: the exhaustion of both teachers and students and mental health problems, which are influenced by the demands of the curriculum, the Matriculation Examination Board and universities, and a constant cycle of reform.
Kinnunen and Rytisalo do not just dwell on problems, they also consider solutions. In mirroring their thoughts, they also open up to each other and to the reader, describe the world in words, talk about their work as writers, their concerns about the state of the world - and a little about dogs and apple trees.
Mrs. C.
Maybe that's what marriage is like, Minna thinks, quickly arranged with two words but slowly growing.
At the foot of the ridge in the lake town is a grey house with eight rooms, six children, a lecturer and his wife. Inside the lady, the storm breaks branches and won't quiet down. In the kitchen, the cakes burn or are left raw, and the lady still does not settle for what others settle for. There is a strength inside her that seeks to get out, growing and churning, questioning the laws of nature, sometimes causing her to fall into melancholy.
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Mrs. C. describes a story of one marriage and shows from what kind of buds the Minna Canth we know bursts: a role model, a fighter, a statue. The daughter of a maid and a cotton merchant ends up marrying her teacher and discovers that she is always pregnant. The family grows, but so does the desire to do much more outside the home.
Mrs C. is a love story and a portrayal of friendship. Although the time is different, the question is the same: where are the boundaries of the individual? The novel is also a powerful, fictional statement for the rights of girls and women.
Lempi
Who is Lempi? What is lempi? (Lempi is an old Finnish word meaning love and also a first name of a woman in Finland)
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The war in Lapland is spinning people's lives like roulette. Viljami is forced to leave his newlywed wife and maid alone at home and go to the war front. Everyone must dare to leave, seize the opportunity and live with the decisions made in the moment. Love sustains, destroys and turns into guilt.
Lempi is a testimony of three people about a family tragedy during the Lapland War. This confident debut novel skilfully weaves together the stories of Viljami, Elli and Sisko and shows how we never see each other as a whole - our story's side characters are in leading roles in their own lives.
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Minna Rytisalo's novel, so powerful in its sensitivity, has a strong tension from the first page to the last. Lempi is an expressive story about people wounded by love and about the randomness of life.
Translations
Lempi: Lithuania (Alma Littera), Norway (Pax), Germany (Hanser), Latvia (Jumava), Hungary (Polar), Sweden (Bakhåll)
Jenny Hill: Germany (Hanser)
Included in anthologies / text collections
Mitä tapahtuu huomenna lukemiselle, Ellun Kanat ja WSOY 2020. Essay concerning the future of literacy.
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Toinen tuntematon -antologia, WSOY 2017. Short story re-interpreting a classic Finnish war novel.
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Rakkaani, romaanihenkilö, Avain 2014. Essay concerning a novel character to be loved.
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Uuden Kuun ja Vihervaaran tytöt, Tammi 2005. Essay concerning L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables.